[Irinikus]

It is not the Phobos G160 card I'm afraid.

If it was a Phobos G160 and Max IMPACT, the Phobos card has to be the top card. Otherwise, you are using two adjacent GIO64 slots and that isn't permitted.

That's a pity, not an absolute biggy though as it won't be connected to the network much. I can maybe source a G160 in the future for this machine and just fit this card into the teal Indigo2 just for the hell of it.

[jirka]

A Palm Tungsten W: a Palm handheld with the classic Motorola DragonBall CPU (@33MHz), an IR Port, a SD slot, Palm OS 4.1 and with wireless data (it's sort of a phone: it can do call but only via wired headset as the device itself has no microphone).

Interesting device. But it's too modern to be connected to a SGI machine (it has an USB instead of the serial port). So I'm continuing to use my Palm IIIx/IIIxe devices because I'm able to use them with my SGI O2.

[Trippynet]

That's a pity, not an absolute biggy though as it won't be connected to the network much. I can maybe source a G160 in the future for this machine and just fit this card into the teal Indigo2 just for the hell of it.

Yeah, I wouldn't worry too much. The EISA card is still a big improvement over the built in Ethernet, and the fact that it has a Max IMPACT card more than makes up for it.

It took me about 6 years of careful hunting to upgrade my Indigo2 from Solid IMPACT and EISA to Max IMPACT and Phobos G160 without paying silly prices. Even then, I'm also missing the TRAM modules...

[Irinikus]

That's a pity, not an absolute biggy though as it won't be connected to the network much. I can maybe source a G160 in the future for this machine and just fit this card into the teal Indigo2 just for the hell of it.

Yeah, I wouldn't worry too much. The EISA card is still a big improvement over the built in Ethernet, and the fact that it has a Max IMPACT card more than makes up for it.

It took me about 6 years of careful hunting to upgrade my Indigo2 from Solid IMPACT and EISA to Max IMPACT and Phobos G160 without paying silly prices. Even then, I'm also missing the TRAM modules...

We're unfortunately going to have to pay a premium for those darn TRAMs! I would say they're pretty necessary to get the best out of a Max IMPACT card!

I eventually want to have a Quake III showdown between this machine and my 400MHz O2!

[Trippynet]

True, however I'm happy to wait for a while and see what shows up. Careful waiting allowed me to find a MaxIMPACT card for about £150, plus a G160 for about £60, which isn't too bad when you consider how much they usually sell for these days. And to be honest, going from SolidIMPACT to MaxIMPACT is already a nice jump. Maybe at some point I'll pay top whack for some TRAMs, but I'm happy to wait for now!

If you don't mind me asking, how much was that Indigo2 you're getting?

[Irinikus]

True, however I'm happy to wait for a while and see what shows up. Careful waiting allowed me to find a MaxIMPACT card for about £150, plus a G160 for about £60, which isn't too bad when you consider how much they usually sell for these days. And to be honest, going from SolidIMPACT to MaxIMPACT is already a nice jump. Maybe at some point I'll pay top whack for some TRAMs, but I'm happy to wait for now!

If you don't mind me asking, how much was that Indigo2 you're getting?

It's costing me 400 Euros excluding shipping and taxes

[Trippynet]

That's not too bad at all for a MaxIMPACT system, good find!

[Irinikus]

That's not too bad at all for a MaxIMPACT system, good find!

I have jan-jaap to thank for that, as he found it!

[jan-jaap]

I'll probably have to go to Ian or Mashek in the future for the TRAMs!

This is what Ian sells them for: TRAM module for High/MaxIMPACT: 250 UKP (SGI PN 030-0676-003. NOTE: MaxIMPACT needs two TRAM modules)

Don't forget that every MaxIMPACT has 1MB TRAM already, the option cards add 3MB more for a total of 4MB.

That's not too bad at all for a MaxIMPACT system, good find!

I got my own MaxIMPACT as a total bargain, by accident. In my first 'real' job I had an Indy on my desk and a 486 class PC. The Indy was the stuff of dreams: 21" screen, camera, and an OS that wouldn't crash if you put it to work. And all in a blue pizzabox instead of a beige tower. If only I could own such system myself ... Fast forward one or two years, one of my former room mates from my college days was now living in Utrecht and would always celebrate his birthday in the weekend of the "HCC Dagen", an annual 3-day computer fair. We would always drink hard on the Saturday evening and crash the final day of the "HCC Dagen" on Sunday when sellers would try to unload whatever they had left for little money. I would always come home with something insane and usually quite useless.

This year I overheard someone ask "how much for this blue thing?" and spotted a stack of at least a dozen Indys on a pallet. The answer: HFL 25,= (so a little over € 10 a piece). I decided to take two, in case there was something broken or missing. The same guy had two "green things" as well, and since they were bigger, heavier boxes he wanted HFL 50,= for them. I haggled him down to 125,= (around € 56) for two Indys and two teal Indigo2's (that's what they were of course, except at the time I had no idea). My first SGI's I had to buy a shopping trolley on site to get the whole stack home. By train.

One of the teal Indigo2's had been upgraded with MaxIMPACT/TRAM graphics, plus matching PSU and IMPACT riser. Jackpot!

That was in 1998 I think, the year after I got a freebie stripped down Indigo2 R10000 chassis from a CAD/CAM office across the hallway where I worked and I was the proud owner of my very own Indigo2 R10000 MaxIMPACT. Still a very capable system at the time. Our cats at the time loved to bask in the hot air from that Indigo2. I still have it of course!

[Irinikus]

WoW, that was a lucky find!😎